


Heartbeat

by bluerosebouquet



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining, also some steve and pepper fluff because theyre best friends and you cant tell me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluerosebouquet/pseuds/bluerosebouquet
Summary: Tony sleeps, Steve watches him and the arc reactor in his hands.





	Heartbeat

Steve ran his fingers over the grooves of the nanotech suit in his hand.  He stared alternately at the glowing reactor and at Tony, lying still sedated in the hospital bed in the compound.  Pepper, in her infinite knowledge of how everyone was feeling, had quietly pulled Steve into Tony’s recovery room, pushed him gently into the chair beside his bed and said,

“I’m going to get a couple of hours of sleep.  Come get me if he wakes up, will you?”

She smiled at him, and made to leave the room.

“I’m sorry about this, Pepper,” Steve had said, and he found that he couldn’t really look at her.

“Steve, he’s here, he’s alive.  That’s so much more than so many people have.  I’m grateful.”

“I feel like I made some things worse, that I shouldn’t have pushed him.”

“He had wanted to say those things for a while, and when on earth have either of us been able to control Tony?” Pepper smiled at him again, and took his hand, “Now, if these bags under my eyes are any indication, I need a couple of hours not plagued by wondering where in the universe he is.  You’re important to him Steve, otherwise that,” she pointed to the arc reactor in his hand, “wouldn’t be in your hands.”

Steve let out a shaky breath, and Pepper pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“And for the record, he’s not the only one that cares about you.”

Steve squeezed her hand and smiled,

“Same goes for you, you know.”

As Pepper departed, Steve watched the nanotech suit’s light pulse faintly in his hand, following Tony’s heartbeat.  He was finding it hard to look at Tony’s face when, normally, he would be drinking it in, especially after a couple of years apart.  Even half starved, the years had been kind to Tony, who only seemed to age in reverse.  Steve had seen him from a distance a handful of times over the years since he had left, not counting through a TV screen.  Once, when they were both in New York, he had seen Tony and Pepper walking down 5th Avenue, Happy behind them, talking animatedly, as Steve walked the other direction with Sam.  He had resisted the urge to turn around and go after them, just like every time he saw Tony.

They had only come face to face once in two and a half years, when they were both in Bryant Park around Christmas.  Steve was on his own, as was Tony, and they had pretty much walked into each other.  To Steve, it was kind of like the world stopped turning when he was face to face with oversized glasses and clear brown eyes.  Tony had tried to turn on his heel and walk away, but Steve caught his arm.

“Tony,” he had said, wanting to meet his eyes.

“Hey Cap.”

They held each other’s gaze for one second, two seconds... 

“How’s Back to the Future?” Tony asked, trying, as usual, to keep things too light.

“He’s fine.  Locked down in a safe place.”

There was a pause where neither of them knew what to say.

“And you?” Tony asked quietly.

“Okay,” Steve whispered, “It can get lonely.”

Tony half-laughed.

“Yeah, I know.”

They didn’t say anything else, but Steve’s hand brushed along Tony’s arm as they went their separate ways, and Tony looked back at him, with something like longing in his face.

Steve thought about the expression on Tony’s face at least three times a week.

As he studied Tony’s gaunt face in the hospital bed, he felt the guilt gnaw at him; it ate away at his insides bit by bit, until there would be nothing left but an empty cavity where Tony’s viciously true woulds could echo for all eternity.

_No trust.  Liar._

Tony was right.  Steve had said that they would lose together.  And Tony was right, Steve hadn’t been there when they, when Tony lost.

Steve hadn’t meant to lie.  He hadn’t meant for this rift to open between them.  Tony, for all their fights and disagreements, was one of the most important people in Steve’s life.

Steve thought of the fight in Siberia.  He thought of the way that he and Tony had almost killed each other.  He knew that he had been right to protect Bucky, bit had he been right to leave Tony, bleeding and emotionally beaten by the knowledge that his parents’ killer was walking free?  The image of Tony putting up his hands to protect his face, convinced that Steve was going to kill him with the shield his father had made.  The fear, the anger, the defiance, and, most of all, the betrayal etched in his face stayed with Steve every day.  He knew, he was certain that he did right by Bucky, but by leaving Tony behind, he had always had the feeling that he hadn’t done right by him.

Had Steve been right to walk away?  To walk away from the job, to go underground?  Most importantly, had he been right to walk away from Tony?  That was, and had always been the only think that ever gave him pause.

He had asked Natasha once, when they had gotten coffee in London one fall, how Tony was doing, in the not-so-subtle guise of asking whether or not he could ever forgive him.  Natasha smiled, a little too knowingly, and said,

“You know Tony, he holds a grudge until someone shows up in front of him.  He’s a big softie at heart, whatever he says.”

Steve stirred his coffee absently, watching the crowd in Leicester Square.

“Do you,” he said, “I mean, do you think I was right?  To save Bucky and, and leave him?”

Natasha watched him thoughtfully.

“Yes.  And no.  I understand why you did what you did, Steve, I do.  And I’m glad that Bucky is safe where he is.  But, it really tore him up the way that you left.  He thought you were going to kill him.”

Tony’s bloody and terrified face flashed across his vision for a moment.  He blinked too quickly.

“I feel guilty.  But I left the shield for a reason.”

“I don’t think he wanted the shield.”

“Then what did he want?”

Natasha sighed and patted Steve’s hands with her own.

Tony had put his heart into Steve’s hands.  The Iron Man suit was a part of him, it was what had kept him alive for years.  And even though the arc reactor wasn’t stopping a cluster of shrapnel from reaching his heart every second of every day, Steve didn’t miss the metaphor of the thing, because if Tony Stark loved one thing, it was a grand gesture through a metaphor.

Sitting there with Tony, while the machines around them beeped and whirred quietly, Steve realized, with a feeling that nearly knocked the wind out of him, that he loved Tony Stark.  That Tony was more than a friend, more than a brother, and that he, Steve, had been too stupid to see it before Tony had been trapped in an adrift spaceship for twenty two days.  And Tony, even through his anger and resentment, had told Steve how he felt in return, even if it was by ripping his arc reactor off of his chest and forcing it into Steve’s hands.

Steve sat there for a while, watching the minty light of early dawn creep slowly across the room, across Tony’s face.  It took him until the sun was almost fully risen before he dared to make a move.

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve said and, haltingly, he pushed his hand through Tony’s hair and, even more slowly pressed his lips to the side of Tony’s mouth.  tony stirred lightly and Steve saw a small smile on his face.  Steve hoped, in some way, that Tony knew that it was him there, and that, even through the resentment and the anger and the fights, that Steve loved Tony with all he had.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay not to be that guy but I saw Endgame for the fifth time this weekend (literally send help) and it literally gets gayer every time I watch it and I basically need it injected into my veins.  
> Also, again, respect Pepper Potts or die by my sword.


End file.
